The historic 2012 conviction of a Philadelphia archdiocesan official for endangering children was based on the evidence of an unreliable drug addict in a “show trial” driven by prosecutors determined to get a verdict against the Church, according to a secular reporter who covered the trial.
Ralph Cipriano, formerly religion reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, suggests that Monsignor William Lynn “is sitting in jail for a crime that never happened”.
Monsignor Lynn, formerly Philadelphia’s vicar for clergy, was the first official of an American diocese to be convicted for transferring a known abuser priest from one parish to another. He was sentenced to serve three to six years in prison.
Cipriano says Monsignor’s Lynn’s conviction — and the related convictions of an other Catholic priest and a school teacher — came in “a couple of show trials shrouded in official secrecy and staged for political benefit”.
He claims that the prosecution’s cases relied on the testimony of “the least credible prosecution witness”, a man with a long history of drug abuse who repeatedly changed his testimony about the abuse he claimed to have experienced.
Cipriano, a long-time critic of archdiocesan officials and their cover-up of sexual abuse, says: “I’m the last person to defend the Philadelphia archdiocese.”
His article about the dubious circumstances of Monsignor Lynn’s conviction was published in the National Catholic Reporter, a publication that is also frequently critical of Church officials.
He reports that a grand jury investigation in 2005 concluded that archdiocesan officials could not be charged with endangering children. But a new grand jury, convened by a prosecutor with an aggressive attitude toward the Church, produced a different result and opened the way for the trials.
The veteran reporter also notes that while pressing the case against Monsignor Lynn, the prosecutor chose not to bring charges against more prominent archdiocesan officials — including the late Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua and two former auxiliary bishops — who were never questioned about their involvement in, or knowledge of, plans to cover up evidence of sexual abuse by priests.
He says: “The two bishops were never questioned about what they knew about the shredding of incriminating documents ordered by Bevilacqua in 1994, including a memo and a list that Lynn compiled of 35 abuser priests then in active ministry.”
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Image: Chronicle Herald
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